Punishment Park

As someone who was dealing with the draft board the year this was made, I was absolutely astounded by the truth of it's vision. The haircuts, clothes, figures of speech, that was what it looked and felt like at the time. Contrary to popular memory, everyone wasn't a hippy with a few "bad" people who were for the war. It WAS scary! I may be wrong, but I do believe that most of the dialogue of the trial section, anyway, was written from various quotes such as from the trial of the Chicago 7. If you want to see something amazing, imagine that on national TV!!! It was on national TV!!!!

Great movie!!!

You can't watch a film like Peter Watkins' "Privilege," a story of the exploitation of a pop music performer by big business, the state, and even organized religion, without thinking of creatively degenerate commodities like Michael Jackson or Britney Spears, who hawk corporate giants like Pepsi or some other poison for money. Or any number of entertainers, in music or movies, who become tools of political parties or commercial religious interests like Scientology and Kabbalah. A film like Privilege must have seemed almost like science fiction when released in 1967, so fantastic was its premise. Today we tend to take celebrity endorsements for granted, giving little thought to its more alarming implications. Watkins' vision has not only become reality, we tacitly accept this reality as "normal."

Now consider Punishment Park. As Privilege challenges the viewer to examine what is being sold to us, and why, Punishment Park demands that we reckon with what is being taken from us, and why.

Heaven help America, and for that matter the world, if contemporary politicians get their hands on this film. It is already so close to reality, that in viewing it recently, I experienced a genuine, nauseating feeling of anxiety.

Watkins again skillfully employs a documentary-style narrative. Whereas in Privilege some rough edges to this technique were apparent, in Punishment Park it has been honed to sharp, seamless perfection. The sense of realism is enhanced by disarmingly unpretentious, economical, believable portrayals by the entire cast. This is the kind of acting Hollywood has completely turned its back on, to its detriment, in favor of cosmetically perfect image projections. The cast has first-rate material to work with in Watkins' screenplay.

Many cinematic visionaries have tried to shake the viewer out of their complacent, false sense of security. No one has ever achieved this result with such stark and chilling accuracy as Peter Watkins does here.

"What seems quite clear now, is that instead of trying to bring the estranged and excluded Americans, such as these people, back into the national community, the Administration has chosen to accept and exploit the present division within the country, and to side with what it considers is the majority. Instead of the politics of reconciliation, it has chosen the politics of polarization."

To paraphrase one of the characters, we don't have to call them pigs because they know what they are. Better than we do.

Set in a California detention camp in an indistinct future, an English film crew capture proceedings as young students and political dissidents are put on trial under a fictional 'Insurrection Act' that allows the United States government to suspend civil liberties for its own citizens in cases of emergency without the right to bail or the necessity of evidence. In such cases the government is authorised to apprehend and detain anyone they believe may engage in future activities of sabotage. The group on trial includes a feminist, a black panther and a folk singer.

Those convicted by the a Conservative tribunal have the choice of a lengthy prison sentence or three days in Punishment Park, in which they can attain their freedom by reaching an American flag in the desert. They must accomplish this without food or water. They are also to be pursued by armed National Guards and police who can return them to the camp if captured to face the penal sentence attributed to each person convicted. The reality is different; those that choose Punishment Park are hunted and killed or brutalised with no hope of gaining their freedom after a policeman is found dead in the park. The park seems to be a training ground for the police and guards who need to master these acts of suppression so they can be put to use in open American society.

Shot on 16mm and in the documentary style developed by Watkins, in his celebrated Culloden and the controversial The War Game for the BBC; he interacts with the prisoners and guards and observes the unconstitutional trial, inter cutting between them to create a totally convincing political movie that still remains vital and relevant. Using his knowledge of the medium, Watkins has produced a driving, relentless and ultimately frightening film portrayal of an entirely fictional American political detention camp that would not convince if it wasn't for his flawless construction. Many of the actors are amateurs improvising with broad characters. The sparks fly in the trial scenes in which each case is heard, in part to the fact that Watkins kept those on trial away from the jury until the filming of those scenes. Watkins also claims that the actors are often expressing their own opinions which certainly explain the ferocity as well as the believability of their performances.

The film has been heavily criticised for polarising the opinions of those that see it. It has been claimed that the film is reactionary and unequivocally represents that conservatism and war are the root of America's social problems. While these criticisms may be valid it is important to consider that the film is working on a fictional, metaphorical level and it is perhaps the realism that the film so cleverly constructs that encourages such a heated opinion on its content. In fact the films most important theme is the problem of polarisation itself. The 'conservative' judges and brutal law officers are on one side and the 'liberal' convicts are clearly on the other with no concessions made on either side. This seems to be what the movie is really about. The new law and the park itself is the outgrowth of a situation where mediation between the two political positions has been lost.

Made during and in protest to the Vietnam War and the treatment of those who opposed the war in America the films main themes of Governmental persecution of its own citizens and Conservatism impinging on civil liberties still strike the same chord in the era of the Patriot act and the identity card. It also strikes a disturbing chord with news footage of Guantanamo Bay and the treatment of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of Allied forces.

The threat of internal 'terrorism' is such a volatile issue that the film cannot fail to connect with current attitudes to the subject. Not surprisingly the film has had a checkered distribution history, being marginalised to an extreme due to its content but the disturbing fact that this movie is that can still remain so relevant today suggests that the wait has not been for nothing. Punishment Park is a film that has had to fight to be seen anywhere and it demands your attention.

I will certainly be shot for comparing this with A Clockwork Orange, but so be it. Both from '71, both banned from television (12-June-2001, 15 votes: isn't it wonderful?), both science fiction and both concerned with an authoritative system that is growing out of (moral) proportions, both scary as hell. A major difference is that Punishment Park is intentionally not aesthetically fine-tuned and that the corrective groups have probably never committed any crime at all, while Alex is a recidivist delinquent. They do, as in Clockwork, spout supposed philosophical statements throughout the film. It is an ultra left-wing propagandistic attack on a certain ultra-reactionary system filled with caricatures (absurd loyalty, juvenile soldiers and rednecks) and the Viet Nam war. The dialogues and monologues are eloquent, but I found them sorely myopic and exaggerated.

quote: 'Punishment Park. Described by the US senate subcommittee on law and order as: a necessary training for the law officers and National Garde of the country in the control of those elements who seek the violent overthrow of US government and the means of providing a punitive deterrent aforementioned subversive elements.'

The supposed delinquents can choose between their (severe) penal sentence or three days in Punishment Park, where officers in training may hunt them. We see the interrogations of a new group alternated with footage of a preceding group that is outside in the park fighting for their dehydrated life and to get to the American flag for chauvinistic 'salvation'. This dystopic penal system is the result of the politics of polarization, according to a condemned one. The hand-held cinematography and the minimalist industrial sound track with constant shooting and agony in the background create a sense of realism, AND it's frightening to see how far fantasy can go in a dated film: it's almost post-apocalyptic. What's even scarier, there are parts of the world that apply even more disreputable methods ... today

9/10 (not for the political ideas of course)

I first knew of this film because of a quote at the beginning of a song. After a little research, I found that it came from this film and, finding the synopsis interesting, watched it. I found several other mind-blowing quotes, and a sense of fear that normally lies controlled under all the illusory security and freedom our governments force unto us via the media machinery and embedded social standards to keep the masses happy in their ignorance. I am not strange to that feeling, since I may know too much for my own good, and also like to do my best to fight this putrid system we were all born into. Punishment Park is shocking because it is happening. I've seen it. While your average Joe rants about the increase in taxes while drowning his frustration in a can of beer, there are others who actually take action. And are at risk of suffering the torments of the so-called "law" in the name of a distorted justice and self-created ideals such as patriotism or morality. The "judges" portrayed in this film do exist, full of absurd and obsolete ideas, believing to be the voice of reason, while those who actually speak sense are treated like criminals, gagged and beaten by the arm of the law, individuals just like any other people who, by the almighty and imaginary power of state, are given the authority to command and do as they please with the common citizen. This movie is not a false documentary. It's a depiction of what has been happening for years in America, in Europe, in Asia, in every continent and with every government. You, thinking you can be as free as you can possibly imagine, whose biggest worries are what to have for dinner, take heed. The body lying on the pavement could be you, murdered by those who claim to come in the name of peace. "At another time, the honorable thing or the right thing to do might be to be a policeman or to be President. Right now, I think the honorable thing to do is to be a criminal"